


Hello Hello

by HopeStoryteller



Series: stay close (move fast) [8]
Category: Zombies Run!
Genre: AGAIN FOR Y'ALL IN THE BACK: THERE ARE TWO FIVES, Deaf Character, F/M, Nonbinary Character, Other, Ramona is Abel Five, Robin is Canton Five, don't worry about the tags :), so I wanted two Fives sue me, there are two Fives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:49:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25274956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeStoryteller/pseuds/HopeStoryteller
Summary: Someone unexpected turns up. And then someoneelseunexpected shows up. Plus side, at least one of them's not a zom?
Relationships: Nadia Al Hanaki/Lem, Nadia Al Hanaki/Runner Five, Runner Five/Sam Yao
Series: stay close (move fast) [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1698457
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	Hello Hello

_“Got a fairly routine run for you today, Five!”_

It’s obvious, painfully so, that his cheerfulness is forced. It’s still a little infectious. Five can’t quite keep from smiling, just the tiniest bit, as she stretches in front of the currently-still-closed gates.

_“Details on the way, we’ve got some shamblers coming just a little too close for comfort and you need to leave soon to avoid them. So, without further ado: raise the gates!”_

The siren goes off. Five watches it go, getting some last minute stretches as she does.

 _“Covering fire,”_ Sam says next, just like always. Five looks up anyway. She watches the guards on the wall raise their rifles, aim, and begin to fire. By the time the familiar _pop-pop-pop_ is done, she’s returned her attention to the gate again. It’s fully up now. She stares out through it into the world outside Abel, and waits, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

 _“Run,”_ Sam says, and she’s off. _“You’ll be heading south today—yes, I know, there’s some zoms hanging around the southern gate so I doubt you mind a slightly longer run to avoid them.”_

“You know me too well,” Five mumbles, her grin growing ever so slightly. “So where am I—?”

 _“So you’re probably wondering about where, exactly, south of Abel you’ll even be going,”_ Sam interrupts like he hasn’t heard her at all. _“New housing development out on the edge of town. Well, new before the zoms. We’ve sent runners out there before, hit the jackpot with one of the garages, loads and loads of gasoline cans. Four and Eigh—Sara couldn’t carry it all back, but we’re reasonably sure nobody else touched it since. Mainly because Sara rigged up some wicked booby traps.”_

“Sounds like Sara alright.” Her mic must be cutting out. Again. Even so, she can’t quite stop herself from saying, “I wish she was here.”

Sam sighs sadly. _“Me too.”_

Five trips over her own feet. Fortunately, she catches herself before she can plant into the ground, recovers, slows down slightly to say, “I’m fine, I’m fine, don’t worry. Thought my mic was acting up. Wasn’t expecting you to respond.”

For a long time, too long, there’s silence. Then Sam says miserably, _“I missed something, didn’t I? I’m sorry.”_

“Hey, no, you’re fine. Don’t worry about it.” Five considers this for a moment and adds, “Of course, that’s assuming you didn’t, say, step out for some Marmite and leave me in the lurch.”

 _“I would_ never _,”_ Sam says so emphatically that he couldn’t possibly be lying. _“My love for Marmite pales in comparison to my love for my runner…s. Getting home safe. Runners getting home safe. Yes.”_

Five laughs. “I, for one, am honored to be ranked above Marmite. And I’m sure any other runner would be too. So, where to? As fun as it is to just run straight south, I can only go south blindly for so long. Also it’s physically impossible for me to run straight. Or do anything straight. Since, you know, not straight. But really who is?”

The only response from Sam is a choking noise, and then a slightly strained, _“So I may have finally taken Ma—multiple people’s advice to keep a bottle of water in the comms shack. And it might have gone down the wrong way.”_

“You okay?”

_“Yeah.”_

“In that case, worth it.”

Sam grumbles something good-naturedly under his breath. _“For now, just do what you do best and keep on running. I’ll let you know when to turn. And where. And if—okay, actually, speed up a bit real quick, yeah that’s perfect! I’m about… sixty-nine percent sure those are your regular common garden zoms, but I want some distance between you and them just in case. I’ll be here, yell if you need me.”_

He switches off his mic. Five doesn’t _really_ need him, not yet, but she can’t quite stop herself from going, “Nice.”

_“…sorry, what was that?”_

“Nice. Sixty-nine. You know.”

There’s silence for one second, two, three and four and five. Then Sam goes, _“How did I not get that. ‘Scuse me, Five, I’m going to go question literally everything about my life up to this point.”_

Five grins and keeps running.

* * *

_“So, Five,”_ Sam says after a while, _“if I’m being completely honest, the fuel isn’t the only reason we’re sending you out this far.”_

“I was wondering,” Five says wryly.

To be completely honest on her end, she wasn’t wondering particularly hard. Sam has never in his life been remotely good at hiding anything, ever. It’s kind of endearing.

_“Yeah. Keep an eye out for… well, anyone. From Abel or anywhere else in the area. You should have some kind of tranquilizer in your pack already—“_

“I’ve got _what???_ ” Five skids to a stop, throws her pack down, and opens it. “When did we get those?”

_“A very good question, and I’m really, really not sure. Could maybe be leftover from Van Ark’s labs…? Anyway—yeah, looks like you found it.”_

“It looks like a regular gun.” She pulls it out warily, makes sure to keep it facing well away from her. “Pistol, I think? Probably semi-automatic.”

 _“It—yeah. Yeah it definitely does. And it doesn’t work on zoms, we tried. But it should work on people. Even people who are… whatever happened to them. Just. Um. Keep it somewhere you can grab it quickly. If you see anyone.”_ Sam clears his throat awkwardly. _“Anyway. I’ve got a few lists of missing people from other settlements as well as our own. New Canton actually sent pictures too. So, uh, if you see any people that aren’t zombies?”_

Five makes a finger gun in view of her headcam and pantomimes shooting, complete with a _pew!_

Sam snickers. _“Yeah, exactly, you got it. Make sure you—did you see that?”_

“What?” Five asks, whirling around. She sees nothing. No zoms, no people. Nothing. Old buildings, and dim alleyways between them.

_“I thought I saw… never mind. Keep running. You don’t have much more to g—to your left! See that?”_

That time, Five _did_ see… something. She’s not entirely sure what she saw. But it looked… almost…”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

_“That looked like one of New Canton’s runner uniforms. They’re definitely missing at least a few, I’ve got the folder they sent here. Which means—run. I’ll patch in Nadia.”_

So Five runs. She runs, and runs, and runs, until the comms line crackles with a new arrival and Nadia says, _“Did you see a number?”_

“Nope,” Five says. “Sam?”

 _“Trying to go back a bit on my camera feed, little harder than I thought.”_ He winces. _“Be careful, Five, I can’t guide you while I’m doing this.”_

“Me? Not careful? Never.”

 _“Abel Five, with all due respect,”_ Nadia says _, “that’s bullshit.”_

“Come on! Sam?”

 _“She’s right and she should say it.”_ Sam laughs.

“Traitor.”

 _“Anyway—I can’t get a clear image, but they definitely do look like a New Canton runner. They’re_ fast _, wow. And—wait, wait okay. I might have something. I might… come on! No!”_

“I can see them up ahead,” Five says. “Can’t quite make out the number still, but—it’s a two-digit number. If that counts for anything.”

 _“That doesn’t narrow it down much,”_ Nadia mutters. _“All our unaccounted-for runners had two digits. Except for… well, they’re still in London, haven’t heard from them in some time but I’m sure they’re fine.”_

_“Who?”_

_“Our Runner Five. Keep going, Abel Five, you’re doing good.”_

“I can almost…” She zooms around a corner, skids to a stop as she realizes two things. One, she’s cornered the runner. The New Canton runner.

Two—they’re not alive.

“Zombie!” Five yelps, hand going to her (Sara’s) machete. The zombie turns, one eye rotting clean out of the socket. He—it, looks at her.

_“Thirty-eight, it’s thirty-eight, now get out of there, Five!”_

_“Runner… Thirty-Eight,”_ Nadia repeats uncertainly. _“Are you sure?”_

_“Positive! Five, why aren’t you running, you need to—“_

“Lem,” Five says for all three of them. “Gods.”

The eye falls. Lem kneels gingerly, picks his eye back up, and shoves it back in the empty socket. It—he? Looks at Five with his good eye, covering the other to stop it from falling out. He gurgles something incomprehensible, something that might have been words if his vocal cords weren’t likely already rotted through.

He looks at Five for a little longer. Then, _Lem_ runs, directly into what Five had thought was a dead end. It’s not a dead end, not for a zombie who apparently not only has the presence of mind not to eat humans, but also _can climb apparently._

 _“Are…”_ Sam gulps. _“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?”_

 _“Yes,”_ Nadia says simply. _“Five—after him.”_

_“What? No! That’s—“_

_“Lem had his chance to attack, if I’m reading the situation at all accurately. He_ chose _not to. I just—please follow him. Please.”_

“Sam, can you patch my headcam through too?” Five asks, and then she runs. Pulls herself up the way Lem did, drops down on the other side of the wall, and keeps following him.

 _“There… we… go!”_ Sam makes a satisfied noise, and Nadia gasps. _“Yeah, he’s… well, a zombie, I’m not sure what else you were expecting.”_

_“Five. Can you go any faster?”_

“Can’t,” Five manages, but tries anyway. She can’t keep up this pace for long, but surely Lem can’t either, he’s a _zombie_. What are the odds that all the muscles involved in running are perfectly fine?

 _“You’re gaining on him,”_ Nadia says.

Sure doesn’t feel like it. If anything, it feels like she’s losing him. She doesn’t have the breath too retort. Isn’t sure she could even if she did. But she has to keep running. She has to—

_“STOP!”_

Five skids to a stop, just in time to watch Lem plummet off a broken bridge. She walks, slower, to peer over the edge. There’s a river below, flowing and churning away. Lem’s nowhere to be seen.

 _I don’t think he’s coming back this time,_ she wants to say, but she’d said that last time too.

“Sorry to bother you, Nadia,” she says instead. “I didn’t think it was—“

 _“You’re fine,”_ Nadia says. It’s a little forced. _“I’ll go ahead and drop out.”_

“Not yet. I see a path along the cliff face. I’ve gone this far, I can keep going a little longer.” Five starts to move, then hesitates. “Sam, I’m sorry about the mission—“

_“Don’t worry about it, we’re mostly sending you to make sure it’s still there. You wouldn’t be able to carry much on your own. Go for it.”_

* * *

Five does not see Lem again. Not this run. But she does, upon reaching the bottom of the ravine, catch a glimpse of a grey shirt. New Canton’s runners wear grey shirts. Not a single Abel runner does.

“Hello?” Five calls. To Sam and Nadia, she says, “I think I saw something. Can you pick up…?”

 _“No sign of Lem,”_ Sam says. _“There might be someone close by? I’m not sure, the scanners are more reliable on nonliving things.”_

“I think I saw—“

Gunshots ring out. Five hits the dirt on instinct.

“Come any closer, and I _won’t miss!”_ Someone yells. They sound… no, it couldn’t be.

 _“Oh my god,”_ Sam whispers. _“Five, you have to—“_

 _“I know that voice,”_ Nadia cuts in. _“Sam. You have to get a better angle on the shooter. If that’s who I think they are…”_

_“I don’t care who they are, they’re shooting at Five!”_

_“You don’t understand. They might be_ my _Five. Canton Five. They were supposed to come back months ago. We’d all given them up for dead. Abel Five—Ramona—I need you to try something.”_

“My options are fairly limited at the moment,” Five—Ramona—points out from her position faceplanted firmly in the dirt.

_“Ask who they are. Please. They—oh. Ohhhh no.”_

_“What?”_ Sam asks indignantly.

_“They left before the peace summit. Before Van Ark’s attack on Abel, the one where—“_

_“The one where we all got blown up, yes, I know. What are you saying?”_

_“I’m saying,”_ Nadia says reluctantly, _“they still think you’re our enemy.”_

“If I stand up, will you shoot me?” Ramona asks, carefully lifting her head. She can’t see where they’re shooting from, and consequently can’t see _them_ either.

“Not,” the reply eventually comes, “if you don’t come any closer. If you do, I won’t hesitate. Bloody Abel scum…”

 _“Hey!”_ Sam protests.

Ramona takes a deep breath, and stands. She brushes herself off, takes a few careful steps back. “Are you New Canton Runner Five?”

“If you don’t want me to shoot you where you stand, I would seriously reconsider that question,” they say warily. And—yeah, they definitely sound familiar. But it couldn’t be them.

Could it be them?

“I’m Abel’s Runner Five,” Ramona says, slightly unnecessarily. “You’ve missed… a lot. Nadia, how long did you say they’ve been gone?”

Canton Five makes a strangled noise.

 _“I didn’t,”_ Nadia says. _“Since… shortly before Lem.”_

“Okay, yep, that is a very long time,” Ramona agrees. “Anyway. Short version is—“

“How do you know Nadia?” They ask suspiciously.

“We’re allies now,” Ramona says. “New Canton and Abel Township. We made a temporary alliance to deal with Van Ark, and now we’re friends? Sort of?”

Sam grumbles something inaudible under his breath, but doesn’t voice it loud enough to be heard by anyone else on the line, and certainly not by Canton Five.

“And how,” Canton Five says warily, “do I know you’re not making all this up? There’s more than a few explanations for how you’d know of Nadia, and yours is far from the most plausible.”

“Oh, believe me, I would have been shocked too if you’d told me back then that we’d be allies.” Ramona grins wryly. “I just… Van Ark is dead. I’d know. I killed him. Or, well, gravity actually killed him, but I helped a lot. So did the rocket launcher.”

“He’s _what?”_

“But Van Ark was only the beginning. There’s… a bunch of people just walked right out of Abel. New Canton too. Every settlement in the area lost people to this… at risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, mind control. It’s mind control. Your people need you. And I’ve heard Nadia’s only ever lost four runners—you wouldn’t want to be the fifth, would you?”

“It was two when I left,” Canton Five admits. They make no move, don’t speak further for a long time. “I can’t trust you. I’m sorry, you _seem_ perfectly nice but then again, so did dear old Professor Van Ark once upon a time. Is he… really dead?”

“Considering how much we lost to do it—yeah. He’d better be.”

“And you… have Nadia on the line. With you. Right now.”

 _“Tell them…”_ Nadia trails off despite herself. Ramona can only manage a nod.

“Ask her,” Canton Five says, “who she came to New Canton with.”

 _“You and Lem. I thought…”_ Nadia sighs.

“You and Lem,” Ramona parrots.

“You’re… telling the truth,” Canton Five breathes. “I… okay. I’m coming out. Metaphorically speaking, I’m very much out of the closet.”

Through the bushes on a ridge above comes someone in a New Canton tank boldly emblazoned with the numeral 5. They’re taller than Ramona, with the same slight build and red hair. But theirs is much longer, tied back in a braid, and their eyes are—

Blue. Dark blue, and she _knows those eyes._

“Robin?” Ramona breathes. “You’re— _you’re_ Canton’s Five?”

 _“You know them?”_ Nadia asks.

“They’re my cousin.”

And suddenly, their dark blue eyes fill with recognition. “Mona? Bloody _hell_ , I was going to _shoot you!_ You can’t be— _you’re_ Abel’s Five? I didn’t recognize you without your glasses. The fuck happened to them? And—when did you grow your hair out, it looks good!”

“Uh, yes, apocalypse, also the apocalypse, thanks,” Ramona says. “I’m farsighted, remember? And not really even that much. It works out for running.”

 _“So let me get this straight,”_ Sam says. _“You’ve been running when you can’t see for how long?”_

“Nothing about this is straight.”

Robin snorts. “Agreed, but who are you talking to? Nadia?”

“She’s here too, yeah. I’m talking to Sam. He’s…” Ramona shrugs. “The Nadia to our Abel. Would be dead about six times over without him, by now.”

_“Pssh, nah, you could have gotten yourself out of those scrapes easily without my help.”_

_“Don’t sell yourself short,”_ Nadia says sharply. _“If you don’t have faith in yourself, how can you expect your runners to?”_

Sam wisely shuts up.

“I’d give you a hug, but…” Robin slips their pistol into a holster and gestures with their newly freed arm at the other, hanging limply in a sling. “I may have some trouble with that.”

“First things first, let’s get you back to Abel, get that looked at. We’re a bit closer than New Canton.”

Robin looks, at first, like they want to protest. Then they shrug. “You know what? Sure. We’re friends now. I can wait a bit longer to get home.” They smile slightly as they add, “Tony is going to be so glad I survived.”

 _“I… don’t know who that is,”_ Nadia says slowly. _“Sam?”_

 _“Nope,”_ Sam agrees.

“Right,” Ramona says brightly. She doesn’t want to be the bearer of bad news. She doesn’t. But… “Who’s Tony?”

Their face falls instantly. “You don’t know? Nadia doesn’t know? He—“ Their shoulders sag too. “Someone I sent back because I thought I wasn’t making it out of there. He should have… maybe he just got lost.”

“Maybe. I’m sure he’s fine.”

Robin looks at her, forces a grin, claps her on the shoulder. “You’ve gotten better at lying. Thought’s appreciated.”

**Author's Note:**

> They're baaaack! :D
> 
> Robin Fife (Canton 5) is a nb lesbian. Their cousin Ramona Fife is a ~~walking~~ running bisexual disaster.
> 
> Also, I can and I will make zombie Lem turn up at every possible opportunity simply because it's funny as hell in a really terrible sort of way. Don't worry about him. Don't worry about the fact that I tagged a hard of hearing character either. ;)


End file.
